The book then describes Yogananda's return visit to India in 1935, where he encountered leading spiritual figures such as Therese Neumann in Bavaria, the Hindu saint Ananda Moyi Ma, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir C. The book describes Yogananda's childhood family life, his search for his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, the establishment of his first school, Yogoda Satsanga Brahmacharya Vidyalaya, and his journey to America where he lectured to thousands, established Self-Realization Fellowship and visited Luther Burbank, a renowned botanist to whom the book is dedicated. Looking north along Swami's beach in Encinitas, showing part of the Self Realization Fellowship's ashram on the point, including (on the left) the hermitage where Yogananda wrote Autobiography of a YogiĪutobiography of a Yogi examines the life and spiritual development of Paramahansa Yogananda. According to Project Gutenberg, the first edition is in the public domain, at least five publishers are reprinting it and four post it free for online reading.

It has been acclaimed as a spiritual classic, being designated by Philip Zaleski, while he was under the auspices of HarperCollins Publishers, as one of the '100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century.' It is included in the book 50 Spiritual Classics: Timeless Wisdom from 50 Great Books of Inner Discovery, Enlightenment and Purpose by Tom Butler-Bowdon. The book has been in print for seventy-five years and translated into over fifty languages by the Self-Realization Fellowship, a spiritual society established by Yogananda. The author claims that the writing of the book was prophesied by the nineteenth-century master Lahiri Mahasaya ( Paramguru of Yogananda). The book is an introduction to the methods of attaining God-realization and the spiritual wisdom of the East, which had only been available to a few before 1946. When he returned to America he continued to establish his teachings, including writing this book. In 1935, he returned to India for a yearlong visit. He then travelled across America lecturing and establishing his teachings in Los Angeles, California. The book continues in 1920 when Yogananda accepted an invitation to speak at a religious congress in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

The book begins with his childhood and family life, then finding his guru, becoming a monk and establishing his teachings of Kriya Yoga meditation. Autobiography of a Yogi recounts his life and his encounters with spiritual figures of the Eastern and the Western world. Paramahansa Yogananda was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, into a Bengali Hindu family. Autobiography of a Yogi is an autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda (5 January 1893 – 7 March 1952) published in 1946.

Yogananda book